Benson cites Texas as prime candidate for Sun Belt expansion

One of the worst-kept secrets in the world was confirmed about 45 minutes ago with the Sun Belt Conference’s official announcement that Karl Benson will be leaving the Western Athletic Conference to take over for the retiring Wright Waters.

Just a couple of quick notes:

* Said getting to 12 football-playing members would be ideal. (The Sun Belt currently has 10, and could lose more to the new Mountain West/Conference USA alliance.)

* While Benson (of course) declined to identify any specific targets, he specifically identified Texas as a “tremendous” candidate for new members.

The tele-conference is still going, so no time to delve deeply into this. But it doesn’t take a genius to figure out that UTSA and Texas State are almost certainly going to get a good look if the Sun Belt does indeed decide to expand. Especially, if it loses teams to Moutain/USA, and even more especially if North Texas is one of them.

We can likely eliminate WAC schools like San Jose State, Utah State and Idaho for geographic purposes. New Mexico State would be a big stretch, especially in jumping over UTSA and Texas State.

Then there are the 10 candidates ESPN.com’s Andy Katz recently cited, of which four already reside in the Sun Belt. Temple and UMass can almost certainly be eliminated (geography). That leaves UTSA, NC-Charlotte, Louisiana Tech and Old Dominion, and we can probably add Texas State to the list with some degree of confidence.

Does Old Dominion get anyone’s blood pumping? Mine, either. So we’ve got what looks like four pretty singular candidates, not including any other FCS schools that might pop up that I can’t think of right now.

In other words, it looks like the Roadrunners and their neighbors to the north might have a great shot at joining the Sun Belt, especially in light of their existing relationship with Benson.